Category: 2017

Come learn about musical instruments and the science of musical instruments. Dr. Kordesch, our local physics of musical instruments expert will be there. Try your hand at making instruments from a wide range of materials, including a PVC flute, recorder or clarinet as well as other options. We will have special guests this evening. Fulbright Scholars from around the world preparing to start their graduate studies in the United States will join us. In addition to making instruments, we hope to learn a little more about instruments from other countries.

What: The Arduino Microcontroller is a small computer that allows one to easily interface with the world: light lights, sense buttons, run motors, …. This open-source design is one of the major fixtures in the modern-day Do-It-Yourself community. We’ll have projects for both beginners and more advanced users. We will have a collection of kits, but feel free to bring your own if you have one.

There’s never quite enough time to explore as much as you might want in one evening. Open Night is a chance to go back and explore activities in more depth or try something out from a night you did not make it to. If this is your first time to Makers, that’s not a problem! We’ll have the Maker Cart, Snap Circuits, probably some LEGOS and K’NEX, and maybe even a Makey Makey or two out for people to experiment with! You also never know what other things might pop up at an Open Night!

(Originally scheduled July 6, this event was moved to July 13.) Mr. Nick Conroy will lead a 3D printing workshop. We will have several printers available. Nick will discuss the basics of 3D printing and participants will learn how to create 3D models in Tinkercad. The printers will be available to print models, but the reality is that a single print may take a while, so some prints may need to be left for subsequent weeks. Tinkercad is a free online tool supported by Autodesk. In order to save your models, you need to set up an account at https://www.tinkercad.com There will be a limited number of temporary accounts set up, but if you can set up an account in advance (click sign up in the upper right corner of the screen), that would help.

Movie Making Madness in partnership with the Ohio Valley Museum of Discovery! Join us for a hands-on exploration of simple movie-making and sound engineering. Learn to use recording technology, manipulate sound recordings, and film a story.

Come learn about hydraulics with several posssible projects from the Maker Cart, including the ‘Judo-Bot’ pictured here (from TeacherGeek.com) and other Hydraulic Arms. Those who are interested can also look at working on previous sail and fan cars.

As summer ramps up, we are looking to start AthensMakers activities on Thursday June 8 from 6-8PM in Clippinger 036. As a reminder this is available for youth from 6th grade (rising 6th graders) on up through high school and parents are encouraged to hang out and join in as well. Our plan is to meet at least every Thursday through early August. We’ve got a great group of volunteers helping with ideas, and we will be collaborating for a number of evenings with the Ohio Valley Museum of Discovery as we explore some of the Discovery Pack workshops being developed through a grant from the State Farm Youth Advisory Board.

We are looking to start this summer with an introduction to the new “Maker Cart” purchased by the Ohio Valley Museum of Discovery through the State Farm grant. The cart is on loan to the Makers through the summer as we all (adults included!) explore a wide range of possible projects. If you want a sneak preview, you can head to https://teachergeek.com and check out the cart and project ideas. We will start by trying out the air cars, powered and unpowered, as a way of getting used to the tools and supplies.

This will be a learning experience for all of us as we try to figure out how to best handle the use of the carts for future sessions. While we are looking into some way of letting participants purchase their creations for roughly the cost of materials, we need to presume that at this point projects will stay in the lab and be recycled for parts for future projects.